Jul 06 2008 at 11:55am
Do we still need em-based layouts?
Most of my recent layouts have been em based. That means that they scale when the font size is adjusted. This approach seems to make more sense than simply allowing the text to resize while keeping the layout the same.
Well, browser manufacturers have caught on to this. Following in Opera’s footsteps, IE and Firefox are now implementing zoom as the default method of resizing text.
If this is the case, then do we still need to code layouts in ems or can we go back to using pixels? I’m currently coding a new layout for this site and I’ve decided to code it in pixels. It’s so much easier not to have to do grid calculation in ems and worry about what the current font size is. My grid unit is 24px. That’s it. Much better.
So, do you think it’s still worth it to code layouts in em’s? The non-zoom font resizing functions are still there. Will people prefer to use them over zooming?
Chuck Monroe July 8th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Funny you talk about that: I was thinking the exact same thing, especially since FF3 was released.
Since screen readers only care about underlying markup, the issue of font size only addresses the needs of website visitors with low vision. And it seems like full zoom addresses that exact need.
I hope this is the case, it is a real pain to use relative font sizes and try to maintain layout integrity at different font “zoom factors”.
I can’t find anything about that in WCAG 2.0…